Snow days could lead to Saturday school

By Scott Nicholson

Watauga County students could be facing Saturday school if an expected storm front leads to more missed days.

Tuesday marked the tenth day school has been cancelled because of inclement weather, the maximum number of “snow days” built into the school calendar. However, one of those days was made up before the Christmas Break on Dec. 19, so the system has one more allotted missed day before school officials decide whether to hold Saturday classes.

Under calendar procedures, Saturday school is just one option to make up missed days.

If a school day is missed Monday through Thursday, the day could be made up on Saturday, but if the cancellation were on Friday, it wouldn’t be made up the following day.

The missed days could not be carried over into Saturdays of later weeks, said school superintendent Marty Hemric. Classes can’t be held six days in a week.

“We’ll decide on each situation,” Hemric said. “Some weekends there are a lot of events that we know our students are already committed to, so we have to take that into consideration.”

The missed days could also be tacked onto the end of the school year, which is currently scheduled for June 1.

If Saturday school were held, it would be an early-release day, with the elementary schools releasing at noon and the high school at 1 p.m. “Historically, attendance is not as good on those days (Saturdays),” Hemric said.

“We might use one or two but it’s not something we want to do a lot of, though obviously it does help us recoup some days. Adding days to the end of the year helps us recover the quality of instruction.”

Right now, spring break would remain as scheduled, though Hemric said days could be taken from it in the event of an unusual number of missed days.

The calendar is reviewed weekly, and Hemric said each decision would be on a case-by-case basis.

The National Weather Service is predicting a likelihood of snow both Tuesday and Wednesday, with total accumulation of three to seven inches possible.

Saturday school was last held in Watauga County in the 2004-05 school year.